Spacing Material

small rectangular bars, usually made of metal or plastic, used in typesetting to make the spaces between words, lines, and type pages. The bars are not as high as the type (20.3 mm high compared to 25.1 mm high). As a result, the ink is not applied to them, and a blank area remains at these places during printing. Several types of spacing material are distinguished according to size and purpose. Spaces and quads are used for interword spacing, leads and reglets for increasing the space between lines, and shoulder-high spaces for producing margins and large blank areas on the page.